


Riddled with Scars

by wanderingoverthewords



Category: Batman - All Media Types
Genre: Additional Warnings In Author's Note, Implied/Referenced Self-Harm, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-17
Updated: 2018-04-17
Packaged: 2019-04-24 00:49:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,298
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14344470
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wanderingoverthewords/pseuds/wanderingoverthewords
Summary: Edward asks Jonathan about his scars.





	Riddled with Scars

**Author's Note:**

> Characters: Edward Nygma, Jonathan Crane/Scarecrow; mentioned Lyle Bolton, Selina Kyle and Batman.
> 
> Pairings: Jonathan Crane/Edward Nygma. Past Edward Nygma/Selina Kyle.
> 
> Warnings: lots of talk of self-harm, bodily harm, implications of nsfw content.
> 
> Notes: Silly fic. Despite the warnings, it’s not really very angsty.
> 
> All material belongs to DC Comics (although, my interpretations of the characters are used.)

“This is boring.”

Jonathan didn’t reply, simply finished the page he was working on reading through, then flipped to the next one.

There was silence as both read through the page, Edward exceptionally faster than Jonathan, then the smaller male huffed and folded his arms. “This is boring,” he repeated, frowning at the book held before him in Jonathan’s slim hands.

Jonathan ignored him again. He finished that page and the one next to it, then flipped to a new pair of pages.

“Jon, did you hear me? I said this is boring.”

“I heard you,” Jonathan replied, not taking his eyes off of the book, which was slightly difficult now that Edward was wiggling around out of lack of other things to do (since his book was so _boring,_ apparently). Jonathan had to cock his head in different directions as either Edward’s head or shoulder continuously blocked his way.

It was exceptionally uncomfortable for Jonathan; Edward was laid between his legs, back to his chest, as Jonathan laid with his back pressed to the sofa’s arm. Whenever Edward wiggled too hard, Jonathan was pressed into the couch’s arm, feeling its structure beneath the leather as it dug into his back. Not to mention having a fidgety man rubbing and pushing against his chest and groin.

When The Riddler finally settled again, Jonathan sighed peacefully through his nose.

“Oh, I’m sorry,” Edward said, looking over his shoulder, mistaking the sigh for irritation. “Am I annoying you?”

“Perish the thought.”

Edward huffed and frowned distastefully at the book again, shaking his head in disapproval. “I just don’t like the book, Jon.”

“So ya’ve said. I’m actually quite enjoyin’ it, though.”

“Well, I’m sorry if I prefer actual _literature,_ instead of…” He trailed off as he tilted his head to see the book’s cover. “…‘Imagine: How Creativity Works’. Why are you even reading this? It isn’t about fear.”

“I can read other things, Edward.”

“But you don’t.”

Jonathan shrugged.

Edward sighed dramatically, bored, and flopped backwards onto Jonathan’s chest, staring critically up at the ceiling as Jonathan continued to read. He valued the times he and Jonathan could relax together, bask in each other’s company, especially when neither were in Arkham. Edward could be quite the cuddly fellow and so this ‘snuggle and read’ session with Jonathan was, to be honest, doing it for him - if only Jonathan had less psychology books.

Edward had attempted to use one of his own books - a novel from recent years. Jonathan had fallen asleep during the third chapter.

What a pain it was, to both love reading but to have different tastes in books. He’d have to try something older next time; Jonathan would probably enjoy that more.

As Jonathan went about continuing on with the boring book, Edward leaned against his partner’s chest and let his mind wander, which was certainly a trek when one had such an expansive mind as The Riddler did. It flicked from topic to topic; he followed the lines in the tiled ceiling, counted the air bubbles in the wallpaper on the wall opposite the sofa, thought about how it was a good thing he’d never met whoever had put the wallpaper up because otherwise he would’ve killed them for doing such a shoddy job, played with the material of his sweater vest a bit before green eyes drifted to Jonathan’s arms.

Jonathan’s skin was pale from lack of sunlight, making the scars that covered a large fraction of his arms and hands more noticeable.

The knuckles of his right hand had clusters of little scars scattered across them, there were little cuts along his index finger and there was one thick, but faded, slice on the pad of the thumb.

On his right arm, he had a thick, horizontal line near his wrist; a vertical one on his inner forearm that finished with a little flick in another direction; two short, but thick lines above his elbow joint, just visible before the rolled up sleeve of his flannel shirt.

The left hand was graced with a diagonal cut across the back and there were matching, horizontal scars above the second knuckle on each of his fingers that had Edward theorising that Jonathan had once had his left hand crushed by something. A couple of scars on the top and bottom of his palm, too.

His left arm: a patch of scars that were just dark dots on his skin, like morbid freckles, on his forearm just below the inner elbow; beneath that was a circular scar and, running from inner elbow to inner wrist was a long, thick scar that Edward remembered well from the incident where Scarecrow had tried to kill him. That wound had done nothing to stop the persona from dragging Edward off of his feet by his throat and pinning him to the wall as he slowly strangled him to death; Edward preferred not to think on it.

Instead, he focused on the circular scar on Jonathan’s left arm. Pointing a perfectly manicured fingernail at it, he said, “That looks like a cigarette burn.”

Jonathan finally looked up from his reading, tilting his arm slightly to look at the aforementioned scar, before he replied, “That’s cause it is.”

“Someone put out a cigarette on you?” Edward asked, then frowned. “Was it Bolton?”

God knew Lyle was in the habit of doing that to the asylum patients; Edward had only gotten out of it with a quick-witted slap to knock the cigarette from his hand. He’d gotten a slap back for that, but it’d been worth it to keep from getting his own circular scar at the hands of Lyle Bolton.

“No,” Jonathan answered. “I did it. Although, Bolton did get my leg…”

Edward faltered, felt a flare of rage at the mention of Bolton’s deed, but decided to ignore it for now in favour of looking over his shoulder in bewilderment. “You put out a cigarette on yourself?”

“Yes.”

“Why?” Edward’s brow furrowed; he didn’t wait for an answer before he asked another question, “Jon, you aren’t…in the habit of self-harming, are you? Because I-I really don’t feel comfortable acknowledging that.”

“No. I’m not,” Jonathan said calmly.

“Okay.”

“Honest.”

“Right. Why did you put a cigarette out on yourself?”

“Ta see if I could.” At Edward’s confused look, he added, “It was an experiment.”

“Ah. Well, I don’t approve of you using yourself as a test subject, but alright. Nothing I can do about it now, I suppose.” Edward turned his attention to Jonathan’s right arm, then pointed at the thick scar near his wrist. “What about this one?”

“Self-harming.”

Edward whipped around, looking to Jonathan with a shocked frown, urging him to reveal he was joking, and Jonathan shook his head and held up a hand in a calming motion.

“Not…Not for the reason yer thinkin’ of. Another experiment.”

“You self-harmed _twice_ \- in two _separate_ ways - for an _experiment? Jonathan.”_

“No, no, I…Lemme rephrase this.”

“Please.” Edward folded his arms once more.

“It was back when I was figurin’ out I can’t feel fear anymore. Both of ‘em - the cigarette burn and the cuttin’ - were just ta see if I could. Y’know. See if I was too scared to do it. I wasn’t, an’ now I’ve got these. It was jus’ this big phase I went through, testing myself out constantly,” Jonathan explained, cocking his head to one side once he finished.

Edward cast an uneasy look toward the scar on Jonathan’s right arm, biting his lip thoughtfully, and Jonathan continued, “Ed, I don’t make a habit of it. It was just a test, a one time thing. I don’t do it anymore. I’m grumpy, not depressed.”

Edward’s lips briefly lifted in an amused smile at Jonathan’s attempt at humour, but he still looked uneasy. “Right, well…See to it that you don’t do it anymore. I’ll kill you if I find you doing anything like that.”

“Of course.”

Edward nodded and was content to move on. He pointed to the dots on Jonathan’s left arm. “These look like poke marks. Injections.”

“Mm-hm.”

“Self-inflicted, I suppose?”

“A couple of ‘em were back with the others - the experiments. See if my own toxin still affected me.”

“And it didn’t, did it?” Edward asked, even if he didn’t need to. He knew Jonathan’s toxin didn’t affect him anymore; Jonathan’s gas mask wasn’t to stop himself from living his greatest fears (since he didn’t particularly have any now, all things considered), but to stop the gas from getting into his lungs. Inactive amygdala or not, he could still be choked by his own toxin.

“Other than makin’ me drowsy and irritable, no. It didn’t.”

“Hm,” Edward hummed.

“The others are from my younger an’ more foolish days, from whenever I couldn’t get any test subjects.”

“‘Couldn’t’?”

“Like I said: more foolish days.”

Edward nodded. His gaze graced the long scar on Jonathan’s left arm and he frowned tightly at it. “I know where that one’s from.”

“Yes,” Jonathan said, quieter this time, and Edward suddenly felt bad for bringing it up.

That incident had to be the first time Jonathan was genuinely ashamed for something Scarecrow had done. Usually, learning that Scarecrow had killed or harmed someone would leave Jonathan shrugging and making the excuse that he still wasn’t to blame for that; Scarecrow did as he liked. But waking up to find his hands around Edward’s throat, squeezing the life out of him, had…been different. Very different.

Jonathan didn’t like to think about it just as much as Edward didn’t, so Edward spared him of that and moved on.

“These?” He asked, pointing to the two scratches on Jonathan’s upper arm.

“Hm? Oh.” Jonathan lifted his right arm and pulled up the sleeve slightly. As Edward expected, there were more: three instead of two. When Jonathan tilted his arm to look at them himself, Edward saw there was, in fact, a fourth, but much smaller and out of line with the others, trailing below Jonathan’s elbow. “Catwoman.”

Edward blinked, surprised. “Selina scratched you?”

“Mm-hm. Thought I was goin’ after her alley cats.”

“And were you?”

“O’ course not. I like cats, I wasn’t doing anything to ‘em except trying to move ‘em. They were hanging around an entrance to one of my hidden labs; didn’t want them going in and experiencing fear toxin.”

“How sweet,” Edward said, with a genuine smile.

He was sure it was because Jonathan had grown up on a farm, but the older male really did have a fondness for animals. He’d never made anything with more than two legs be his test subjects for toxin; that honour was for humans only.

“Those are awfully thick for Selina’s claws, though…”

“She hadn’t had a chance ta sharpen ‘em beforehand. Think that was the other excuse fer cuttin’ me.”

“Ah.” Edward was silent for a moment, then he pursed his lips and scrunched up his brow. “That does make me feel weird, though…”

“That Selina tried ta claw my arm off? Yeah, me too.”

“No, no. I meant that my ex tried to rip off my current partner’s arm.”

It was like a record scratch in Jonathan’s mind.

All mental images of that incident came to a complete stop, replaced with discomforting images of Edward and Selina together. He knew, of course, that they were friends. Selina had visited a few times; Jonathan usually avoided her by remaining in his study. Nothing more than a quick hello between them as she sat to chat with Edward over hot chocolate and cookies.

Once or twice had he ever walked in on their chatting; they were always giggling together, always sitting close, with either Selina’s head on Edward’s shoulder or Edward’s head in Selina’s lap. Jonathan had _thought_ it was a bit weird, but, well, Edward was naturally touchy (to him, at least), so it hadn’t bothered him too bad. Edward often swapped Selina’s company for Jonathan’s anyway, if he was sure Jonathan wasn’t going back into his study; he would fly away from her and usher for Jonathan to sit down so Edward could latch onto his arm or crawl into his lap, but…but still…

At the silence, Edward frowned lightly and turned to look up at Jonathan, being met with a deep frown in return. Edward blinked twice, then rolled his eyes. “Oh, come on, Jon. You can’t have thought that you were _my_ first partner.”

Jonathan didn’t reply. He didn’t even blink.

“What?!”

“You an’ Selina…were an item,” Jonathan spoke slowly, like he was still figuring it out.

“Briefly. Well, I suppose we were more sex buddies than actually _dating._ More of an…arrangement than a relationship. Called each other up when we needed the company, you know? I was her arm candy at a few events, she was mine at a few parties. Would we cuddle on her sofa whilst watching cheesy soap operas and that court show that we both scoff at? Perhaps. But it wasn’t nearly as meaningful as this, Jon.” He gestured between he and Jonathan.

Jonathan looked away as he thought about this, then he muttered, “Never picked up on it.”

“Well, you missed most of her visits, so I’m not surprised. But it’s in the past, Jonathan, so does it really matter?” He rotated himself until he and Jonathan’s bellies were pressed together and he looked Jonathan in the eye.

“…Suppose not.”

“Exactly,” Edward said with a nod, leaning up to press a kiss to Jonathan’s lips. As he pulled away, he held up an index finger and spoke chidingly, almost patronisingly, “So, no giving her petty glares next time you see her. Whatever feelings she and I held for each other are firmly in the past and I remain only yours. _Okay,_ Jon?”

Jonathan nodded slowly. He would probably hold off on petty glares the next time he and Selina were in the same room together, but, if he happened to hold Edward a little closer and tighter than usual when Edward sat in his lap, well…that happened, didn’t it?

(And Edward couldn’t pretend he wouldn’t enjoy watching Jonathan battle with his emotions like that. ‘I remain only yours’ - get real, Nygma, he knew exactly what you were doing with _that_ line.)

“Right, then. Tell me,” he used the erected index finger to poke the scar running vertically through, to him, the right side of Jonathan’s lips. “What’s this one from?”

Jonathan raised his left hand to touch it gently with the pads of two fingers. “Got in a fight, first time I went ta Arkham. Back when they let us have metal cutlery. Pretty sure that’s the reason we ain’t allowed it anymore.”

Edward gave a fake gasp. “So _you’re_ at fault for the flimsy, plastic utensils! Well, I never.”

“Ain’t my fault someone cut me with a spoon.”

Edward’s laughter was so sudden, it almost choked him. He raised a hand to slap over his mouth, trying to cover the giggles and the amused smile. “W…What?”

“They cut me with a metal spoon.”

“I…W-What?!” Edward’s voice reached a new pitch as he tried to contain himself, cheeks beginning to turn red with the strain.

“Edward, are you laughin’ at me?”

Edward’s response was to hide his face in his hands, giggling madly into the palms.

“I can’t believe this.”

“No, no, no, wait, wait, wait!” Edward exclaimed, bursting out from hiding and waving both hands in the air. “They…They cut you with a _spoon?”_

“Yes.”

“W-Why the _spoon?”_

“Probably cause it fuckin’ hurts.”

That did it; the bluntness of Jonathan’s response made Edward burst into laughter, unintentionally spitting as his mouth flew open to release the noise. Arms came around himself to hug as he flopped onto his back, causing Jonathan to grunt beneath him, and Edward threw his head back onto Jonathan’s sternum as he cackled into the air, tears threatening to spill from his shut eyes. He kicked lightly and wiggled atop of Jonathan, who watched him with a raised eyebrow and pressed together lips.

“Edward -”

He was cut off by more wild laughter.

“Edward -”

More laughter.

“Edward, they didn’t cut me with the fuckin’ - the spoon end!”

Edward’s laughter finally began to die down as he looked up at Jonathan out of the corner of his eye, a thin film of unshed tears over his vision. He still shook with giggles, but he managed to bring them down to such a level that he could speak coherently, “W-What?”

“They didn’t cut me with the spoon end. They cut me with the handle - an’ they sharpened it beforehand,” Jonathan explained, frowning lightly.

Edward was still chortling away quietly, but his laughter had certainly died as the truth came out. Slightly let down by it, Edward took off his glasses and wiped his eyes with one hand, cheeks hurting and breath coming out in spurts around his continued chuckling. “Oh…Oh, God…I can’t breathe, hold on…Oh, Jon…” He replaced his glasses. “You have _completely_ ruined the mental image I had constructed…Jesus Christ…”

Jonathan raised an eyebrow. “Edward, were you laughin’ at the thought of me getting cut with a metal spoon?”

Edward snorted, one hand coming up to cover it. “Oh, come on, Jon, that is _hilarious.”_

Jonathan grunted and went to retrieve his book from where Edward had knocked it out of his hands during his laughing fit. He flipped through the pages until he rediscovered his place and went back to reading, during which Edward finally calmed himself down and laid back against Jonathan, smirking up at the ceiling.

After a few moments of silence, Edward rolled over onto his belly and directed the smirk to Jonathan. Only once Jonathan’s eyes had flicked to him did he speak, “So, we’ve had self-inflicted experimentation, falling off a building, Selina’s claws and -” He stopped himself with a barely held in chortle that Jonathan frowned at. “- And a metal _spoon._ Where are the others from?”

Jonathan stared at him for a moment, considering this, then he tilted his head to point to the scar at the bottom of his right cheek. “Don’t remember this one; Scarecrow.” He pointed to the small one above his left eyebrow. “Batman.”

And so Jonathan went off listing the scars that riddled his arms and face and neck, all the ones Edward could see at the current moment. The explanations were all fairly simple: ‘Batman’, ‘can’t remember; Scarecrow’, ‘bullies from my younger days’ or, occasionally, ‘Arkham staff’, a couple of which were specified as ‘Bolton’ (that had been the answer to those matching scars on Jonathan’s fingers; Bolton had once slammed the little door of solitary confinement’s food dispensing hatch down upon them once he’d tricked the loopy and mentally unstable Crane into reaching for his dinner. Why they hadn’t been keeping Jonathan in a straightjacket, Edward didn‘t know, but he did know he would be asking Bolton about that incident next time he saw him.) Nothing as hilarious as being cut with a metal spoon, though Edward had gotten a chortle out of learning the slice of a scar on his thumb had been from Jonathan’s first attempt at opening a can of beans when he was a kid.

“How…How did you cut your _thumb_ opening a can of _beans?”_

“Like I said earlier: more foolish days.” With that being the last of Jonathan’s explanations, he then had a question for Edward, “Why’re you asking, by the way? All of a sudden?”

Edward raised an eyebrow, chin rested between Jonathan’s pectorals, hands on either side of Jonathan’s belly as he had rested against him amidst his scar stories. Peering at him over his glasses, Edward asked curtly, “What? Is it a _crime_ to ask about my partner’s life?”

“No. It was jus’…sudden, is all.” He picked up his book once more and went about finding his page. “Been doing this for a year or so and you’ve never asked about them before.”

Edward’s eyelids slid down halfway over his eyes and his lips pursed, giving Jonathan a look of irritated exasperation that Jonathan either didn’t catch or simply ignored; either was plausible. Sniffing once, Edward said curtly, “Yes, well. There’s quite a few things that have never been _said_ in this… _wonderful_ year we’ve spent together. Right, Jon?”

“Suppose.”

Edward frowned deeply. Really? That was all Jonathan had to say on the matter? Jonathan wasn’t an _idiot,_ he had to have been able to tell what Edward was talking about here! Avoiding the topic of the L-word again, that was what he was doing. Make no mistake of it, Crane, Nygma was onto you.

Huffing once, Edward tilted his head downwards, burying the lower half of his face in Jonathan’s t-shirt as he cast his narrowed gaze away. Still no hope of that, then…But, mark his words, he would get Jonathan to say it one of these days. One of these days, whether or not Jonathan actually shared his feelings would come to light and…everything would be fine, then. Or not. Depending on the answer to that.

Edward shut his eyes and relaxed against his partner for a few moments, a near silence enveloping them, besides the rustling of pages as Jonathan turned them and the slow ticking of the clock on the wall.

When a new thought came to mind, however, Edward raised his head and smirked at Jonathan, perching his chin upon his breastbone again. The older man didn’t react, so Edward went on anyway, “Joooooooon?”

“Hm?” Jonathan replied, not taking his eyes off of his book.

Edward raised one hand to prop his cheek against innocently. “Explain how you got the rest of your scars?”

Jonathan’s lips pressed into a thin line. He definitely wasn’t an idiot; Edward knew for a fact that Jonathan had scars scattered across his entire body, and Jonathan knew he knew this. He also knew exactly what Edward was getting at with this prompt, especially with that tone of voice. He, however, wouldn’t be entertaining the idea - not right away, anyway, because if there was one thing he enjoyed doing to the younger male, it was teasing.

“Maybe later,” Jonathan said. “I’m busy right now.”

He was halfway through a sentence when the book was suddenly grabbed, slammed shut and thrown over a shoulder with a delicate flick of the wrist. It soared across the room, where it hit the wall and cluttered to the floor. All whilst Edward continued giving him that innocent expression, looking him right in the eye.

Jonathan stared at the spot in which he’d been holding the book, then his eyes slowly rolled downwards to look at Edward. Attention received. “…Now, was that necessary?”

“Oh, I’m sorry, Jon,” Edward replied, his tone a mix of sarcasm and wit, purposefully put on to be both charming and annoying. Hands were pressed to Jonathan’s sides and Edward dragged himself up, sliding across Jonathan’s body, pressing slightly downwards as their groins touched, until their noses were a centimetre apart.

Jonathan tried not to react, but Edward caught that sharp inhale he’d taken in through his nose.

“I’m just _so_ interested in your scars,” Edward went on, thumbs pressing circles into Jonathan’s sides to massage the muscles there. “I’m sure you have a lot of fun stories to entertain me with.”

Jonathan raised an eyebrow. “Not so certain it’s the scars, nor the stories, that yer interested in, Edward.”

“Perish the thought; I’ve been wanting a good _story_ since you opened up that damned book.” He cast a sour look in the direction the book had been thrown. He looked back to Jonathan and smiled. “So - entertain me, Crane.”

“What, was my tale of the metal spoon not enough for you?”

Edward barely kept back a snort; Jonathan frowned at him. Edward waved a hand and cleared his throat. “Amusing, but no. Definitely not enough. I suppose I’ll just have to hear all your other tales, find one that keeps me from getting bored.” He smirked. “What do you think?”

Jonathan stared at him, expression neutral. This was the thing with Edward; he didn’t have to give grand or sordid gestures to let Jonathan know what he wanted; though he sometimes treated Jonathan to something a little more risqué when he wanted to seduce him, they weren’t needed. Edward was an open book and he was very good with getting what he wanted with just the right kind of look; in the very least, these tamer seductions just told Jonathan how annoying Edward would be if he didn’t even partially go through with his request. This time, Edward had trapped him underneath him, too; he would be extra annoying and chatty then.

Then again, Jonathan supposed this was one of the more pleasurable ways to get Edward to shut the fuck up, so he wasn’t complaining at all.

After a few moments of staring, Jonathan sighed through his nose, patted both cheeks with both hands in three rhythmic slaps, as if to wake to himself up, then he raised his head. “Okay, fine.”

Edward grinned wickedly and sprang up off of Jonathan, grabbing for the older man’s hand after Jonathan had slid to his feet and popped his joints back in order. The younger male was practically skipping as he dragged Jonathan to the stairs, speaking animatedly along the way, “After you give me the grand tour, I’ll make dinner.”

“Good…”

“I’m thinking something with beans tonight.”

“Edward.”

“Oh, don’t worry, Jon. I won’t make you open the can.”

“I swear ta God…”

“And, I promise, I’ll grab you a plastic spoon to use. Wouldn’t want you to go through that Hell again.”

“Don’t push yer luck, Nygma.”


End file.
